Podcast: Volunteers key to effort to save Yellowstone cutthroats

A National Park Service work skiff heads out on a lake-trout destruction mission in July.

You all likely remember the essay contest we conducted this summer, with two bloggers getting the chance to come to Yellowstone National Park and see TU's efforts first-hand to remove invasive lake trout from Yellowstone Lake. The lakers, native to the Great Lakes, are literally eating away at native Yellowstone cutthroat trout in the lake, which was, at one time, the single-largest population of genetically pure Yellowstone cutts in the world.

That's not so today, thanks to lake trout.

The two lucky bloggers who got to visit Yellowstone this summer--Steve Zakur of Sipping Emergers and Marc Payne of The Perfect Drift--have done some great writing on their adventures in the park, and TU's work with the National Park Service, the Yellowstone Park Foundation and others to not only remove lakers from Yellowstone Lake, but to restore the park's once-vibrant native trout fishery.

Today, we released a podcast that features TU President and CEO Chris Wood discussing the efforts TU and its volunteers are making to raise money for the lake trout control effort with Dave Sweet, perhaps the most active TU volunteer in the West--Dave has spearheaded the effort to raise money to pay for telemetry equipment that will allow the Park Service to learn more about lake trout, where they migrate, where they spawn and where they spend their time. In turn, this data will be used to target lakers throughout the ice-free season in hopes of reducing their numbers enough to allow native cutthroat trout to once again prosper in Yellowstone Lake.

Enjoy the podcast, and if you're interested in helping this effort, we can always use a donation! Visit the East Yellowstone TU Chapter homepage for more details.